Article:

https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/us-news/living-pay-cheque-to-pay-cheque-you-are-not-alone-68-of-americans-are-too/3923390/

Source Study:

https://www.pymnts.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/PYMNTS-New-Reality-Check-February-March-2024.pdf

Oh hey, Forbes says nearly 72% of those living paycheck to paycheck have less than $2,000 in savings!

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/banking/living-paycheck-to-paycheck-statistics-2024/

Yeah, this is what an economic collapse looks like, Great Depression 2.0, hold onto your butt, and good luck.

EDIT:

We also have a massive negative net worth problem.

Negative net worth means you have more debt than assets.

Because this is difficult to measure accurately, unless you are a credit bureau....we've got anywhere between 1 in 10 and 1 in 3 Americans with more debt than assets, ie, they are de facto debt slaves.

https://www.creditkarma.com/about/commentary/americans-have-a-net-worth-problem-and-its-not-positive

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/whats-your-net-worth-25-of-americans-say-theirs-is-%240-or-less

https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/thirteen-million-us-households-have-negative-net-worth-will-they-ever-move-from-debt-to-wealth/

These are all from 2 or 3 years ago, I imagine its now closer to 1 in 3 than 1 in 10.